Head Coaching: A Steady Gig
Once a coach, always a coach? Let's look at the stability of head coaches in MVB. Also, does 2025 feel different, or is it just me?
Every month, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics releases its jobs report. As far as I know, there is not a section dedicated to the very specific job market of NCAA D-I/II men’s volleyball head coaches.1 So, let’s fill that gap and talk about the landscape of coaching in men’s volleyball!
Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop
There are a very limited number of head coaching jobs in the men’s volleyball world. When someone gets that coveted spot, they tend to hold onto it. Sure, we have a good number of first year coaches, who are largely at young programs. But we also have the legend Mark Pavlik entering his 31st season at Penn State. The landscape is varied, but leans towards longevity.
Let’s start by looking how long coaches have been with their current program.
As you can see from the chart, there are a lot of coaches in their first year at a program, but the average (mean) is still almost 6 years! For some perspective from the professional sports world: the average coaching tenure in the NBA is just over 3 years.2
At the far end, there are four coaches who have been at the same place for over 20 years. That type of longevity is not only evidence of their skill, but of the stability of the sport. With a smaller pool of teams, and thus coaches, programs are willing to weather a bad year or two, unlike professional sports.
That being said, the four coaches with the longest tenure have a combined record of 1881-1016 which is a .649 winning percentage! Mark Pavlik alone has a record of 679-227 for a blistering .749 lifetime winning percentage. So yeah, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out why these coaches still have very secure jobs.
Can we keep this up?
With new teams, come more job openings. This is a major reason for the influx of first year head coaches. This big group at the beginning of their coaching careers will be interesting to watch. If the pace of teams being added increases, we may continue to see assistant coaches getting hired as first-time head coaches. But if the growth slows down, which is possible, we could start to see the average continue shifting to the right. Even when some of the long-timers retire, we will likely still have more than a handful of seasoned coaches.
The question will become, how will new coaches rise up in this landscape? With new programs come the opportunity to make a name for yourself. The sad part is that it will probably become less and less common for coaches to stay at one school. Right now, about 70% of men’s volleyball coaches have been a head coach at just one school.
Men’s volleyball has 20+ teams that haven’t been around for more than 5 years, so I would expect this graph to be skewed to the left like it is. But let’s look at what the total head coaching experience looks like.
Combined, there are 483 years of experience! The average coach has been at the head of a program for over 7 years. This is what stability looks like. But we might be on the cusp of that changing.
With the trend in all sports, programs have a decreasing tolerance for losing. As parity grows and more teams are added, programs will look to coaches with experience to lead their established programs to success. It can’t be forgotten that the women’s game is growing even faster, so don’t be surprised when some of these coaches jump over to the other height of the net.
As programs mature, it will be fascinating to watch how this landscape changes. I’m excited for it and what it could look like and look forward to all of the great coaches of the future.
Something Feels Different
Is it just me, or does this season feel different? I’m not talking about the quality of volleyball, which continues to be stellar. I am talking about something difficult to measure: momentum.
One very tangible piece of evidence for volleyball’s momentum is coming up this weekend: the First Point Volleyball Foundation Collegiate Challenge. It’s a mouthful, sure, but it is being streamed on ESPNU and ESPN+ this year!
But where I am really seeing this momentum is on Instagram. This year, there have been a handful of new accounts dedicated to growing the game. You add that into the stalwarts of the sport and you are getting some fantastic coverage! In the spirit of growing the game, I wanted to highlight some ways you can get more volleyball content, on a couple of platforms.
Websites
Off The Block - The OG
HD Volleyball - The new kid on the block: schedules today, everything in the future
NCAA Stats - For when you get really desperate
Instagram
ncaamvb - not the “official” account…this one actually posts
jtmvball - daily coverage and commentary
HD Volleyball - Beautiful volleyball videos
Set Point - Podcast and commentary dedicated to all things volleyball
Set The Bic - Great name and great daily content
Chad Gordon - The “volley dork” himself, he posts sporadically but it is always worth it!
TheVolleyballRecap - Recaps…obviously
This is not an exhaustive list by any means, so please add some good people to follow in the comments, regardless of the platform.
Latest Polls
Including polls in these weekly posts is slightly ironic. Part of the reason I even made a predictive model for men’s volleyball was because I was tired of relying solely on the polls. That being said, I still think they all have something to offer. So, here are the latest coaches and media polls.
After a strong showing against Hawaii, Harvard makes its way into the top twenty, knocking off McKendree. There is something about that #20 spot and playing Hawaii…will Princeton beat this trend? Not a ton of movement, but two notable shifts:
Penn State drops 6 spots to #14
Loyola climbs 4 spots to #8
Both of these teams will be interesting to watch this season. The VBelo model still likes Penn State so it will be interesting to see how much that changes (or doesn’t) in the weeks to come. You can never count Ryan Merk out.
Nothing super surprising here. Since the media poll is contained to only the top 10, there will likely be less movement than what we see in the coaches’ poll. I am (usually) a voter in the media poll. I say usually, because I was late to get to my ballot so I was not able to participate in this one. We will see how it goes this weekend.
In’s & Out’s
A section for all of the random things that don’t fit anywhere but belong somewhere.
AVCA Player of the Week: Daniel Fabikovič (OH, Loyola)
Is Moni Nikolov the best chance at a Triple-Double this year? Here are his stats yesterday in 3 Sets against Lindenwood. Only 3 sets! Who else do you think has a chance?
30 assists, 3 digs, and 7 kills!
THE Erik Shoji jumped on the “Put Pressure on the NCAA” train!
I have not read one of these reports, but I think I am making a very safe assumption.
This information was surprisingly hard to find. Here is my source, but there may be better data out there. https://www.sportsbettingdime.com/guides/research/managerial-reign-in-sports/
Agree that the season feels different...maybe it's due to fact that the lineups of key teams LOOK different. Start with Long Beach, Grand Canyon, and Hawaii....lots of new faces!